K, Gopinath, an advocate and general secretary of Hindu Munnetra Kazhagam filed a petition before the Madras HC against the premature release of Al-Umma leader SA Basha who was serving life term imprisonment for the serial blasts in Coimbatore in 1998 which killed 60 persons in total. The petitioner submitted that the habeas corpus petition filed by the daughter of the convict was not maintainable. In his plea, he contended that the convict was the mastermind of the Coimbatore 1998 Serial blasts, which took place before the campaign meeting of BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani. In addition, he was arrested in 1991 with a connection to the murder case and was booked under Section 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy), 302 (Murder) and 148 (Rioting) of the Indian Penal Code and was then remanded to judicial custody and was awarded life imprisonment by the trial court.
Following the 1998 serial bomb blast case, the sessions court convicted him and awarded life imprisonment in this case as well on August 1, 2007.
Referring to the scheme announced by the Tamil Nadu Government with regard to the early release of those life convicts who have completed 20 years of actual imprisonment on humanitarian grounds under Article 161 of the constitution. Mubeena, Basha’s daughter contended that his father is an aged prisoner and was eligible for the premature release because he has already completed 22 years of life imprisonment and since both the convictions were of life imprisonment, the sentences were earlier order to run concurrently with the previous conviction.
Hearing both the sides, the division bench of Madras High Court comprising Justices Rajiv Shakder and N Sathishkumar refused to hear the petition as there was no merits in the case and hence, dismissed the plea.
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